This month marks the third anniversary of the start of this huge community engagement project. The five year programme is designed to provide places for over 6000 school children and thousands more adult volunteers over that time. It is run by the Centre for Applied Archaeology at Salford University. In the end it will have investigated eleven sites in the ten boroughs of Greater Manchester (plus Blackburn and Darwen). It is thus one of the largest community archaeology projects currently running in Britain. So far more than 600 adult volunteers and several thousand school children have taken part in the project across the eleven sites. Although professionally led, the overall aim of DGM is to involve as many people as possible from local communities.
It all started in Leigh, at the Etherstone Hall site in 2012, when 100 adults and 300 children took part in excavations over a 2 week period. This was followed later in the year by sites in Radcliffe (Close Park), Oldham (Chadderton Hall Park) and Stockport (Wood Hall). The programme continued in 2013 with excavations at Moss Bank Park, Bolton, Balderstone Park, Rochdale, Hulme Cavalry Barracks in Manchester and Buile Hill Park in Salford.
Probably the most significant of these to the local community and the nation as a whole, was the Hulme Barracks, being the home of the 15th Kings Hussars, who were stationed there alongside the part-time Manchester and Salford Yeomanry. In 1819 they were mobilised to disperse up to 80,000 protesters who had gathered in St Peter's Field to demand political reform. The resulting sabre charge left approximately 15 dead and up to 700 injured. This shocking attack was dubbed The Peterloo Massacre and is one of the most famous (or infamous) events in the history of the North West.
Finally in 2014 the last of the eleven evaluation trenches took place at Eastwood House in Cheetham Park, Stalybridge, Witton Park, Blackburn and Longford Hall, Trafford.
This year will see longer term excavations at two ‘flagship’ sites at Close Park, Radcliffe (investigating the remains of the 15th century Hall and Tower) and Buile Hill Park, Salford (investigating the remains of the early 19th century Hart Hill House). The dates for the first at Close Park have just been announced and are as follows - 13th April through to the 15th May Monday to Friday plus Saturday 2nd May and Bank Holiday Monday 4th May. If you are interested in volunteering please contact Vicky Nash at v.nash@salford.ac.uk. These excavations will be followed by a series of workshops and lectures around the various boroughs, dates and venues yet to be finalised. The Centre for Applied Archaeology are also pleased to announce their first DGM conference. It will be taking place at Salford University on Saturday 14th March 2015. It will be held in the Peel Building next to Salford Museum & Art Gallery and will run from 9:30am to 3pm. Admission is free but places must be pre-booked. The day will include a series of talks from the archaeologists, volunteers and other participants of the project. There will also be displays of finds uncovered over the past three years of digging. To book or your place or for further information please contact v.nash@salford.ac.uk.
Artefacts and Monuments Record
At last year's AGM it was mentioned we were developing an online database called Routeway Furniture which was first initiated by Eric Walter in 2013. It was designed to capture information about vulnerable heritage assets such as mileposts, boundary stones etc. Since then however we have discovered that much of this has already been covered by other organizations such as the Milestones Society and Canal Societies. However last year Eric suggested that we open it up to any heritage asset - in effect creating our own HER. Dave Horrocks, our developer, has now added more categories covering all periods from Pre-historic to Modern and also an artefacts category. He has also been working on a presentation format which includes a Google map with location and a GM HER reference. When complete it will be quite a useful resource for the Society.
Next Meeting
Wednesday 4th March - in the Standish Suite at the Brocket Arms (7.30pm as usual). This month David Ratledge will be talking on is favourite subject, Roman Roads. As you probably know David used to work for Lancashire County Council and was responsible for the creation of the very useful Mario website. He last visited us in 2010 but a lot has happened in the Roman world since then. David will bring us up to date with all the latest developments both nationally and locally. Hope to see you there, BA
|
